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Roald Dahl: World War Ii
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Instead of going to college, Roald Dahl worked with Shell Petroleum and was sent all over the world for exploration expeditions, and even worked for them in Tanzania. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and was accepted and trained in a fighter pilot program. With only seven hours of training, Dahl was allowed to fly solo. After months of training, he was given incorrect coordinates of where to fly and subsequently crash-landed in the Libyan Desert. With serious injuries and blindness that lasted over two months, he recovered. Although doctors said he would never fly again, he soon found himself training on the newest of fighter planes.
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After graduating from Repton, Dahl took a position with the Shell Oil Company in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Africa. In 1939 he joined a Royal Air Force training squadron in Nairobi, Kenya, serving as a fighter pilot in the Mediterranean during World War II (1939–45). Dahl suffered severe head injuries in a plane crash near Alexandria, Egypt. Upon recovering he was sent to Washington, D.C., to be an assistant air attache (a technical expert who advises government representatives). There Dahl began his writing career, publishing a short story in the Saturday Evening Post. Soon his stories appeared in many other magazines.
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Dahl flew for the Royal Air Force during World War II, and began to write about his experiences not long after he was grounded following a crash. These stories were collected in Over to You in 1946 and ... served as the basis of his autobiography, Going Solo (1986). His childhood is related in another autobiography, Boy (1985). As his writing grew more imaginative he turned to writing short stories that were published in magazines from Harper’s Bazaar to Playboy, and later published in several collections including Kiss, Kiss (1969), Switch Bitch (1974), and Tales of the Unexpected (1979). He won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America three times.
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At eighteen, instead of entering university, Dahl joined an expedition to Newfoundland. Returning to England he took a job with Shell, working in London (1933-37) and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1937-39). During World War II he served in the Royal Air Forces in Libya, Greece, and Syria. He was shot down in Libya, wounded in Syria, and then posted to Washington as an assistant air attaché to British Security (1942-43). In 1943 he was a wing commander and worked until 1945 for British Security Co-ordination in North America.
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Dahl became a writer during World War II, when he recounted in a short story his adventures as a fighter pilot for the Royal Air Force. The story was bought by The Saturday Evening Post and a long, illustrious career was born.
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On 20 April Dahl took part in the "Battle of Athens", alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle and Dahl's friend David Coke. Five Hurricanes were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle.
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